Breast cancer rates drop 15 percent
This is some crazy (good) news:
Rates of the most common form of breast cancer dropped a stunning 15 percent from August 2002 to December 2003, researchers reported yesterday.They proposed a reason for the drop that was just as stunning: It probably occurred, they said, because at that time, millions of women abandoned hormone treatment for the symptoms of menopause after a large national study concluded that the hormones slightly increased breast cancer risk.
Wacky! The New York Times piece is pretty comprehensive, check out the whole thing.
If you want more info on breast cancer and ways to get involved, check out Breast Cancer Action.
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Bring It On! has this. I commented over there but I'll put it here because I didn't get a response over there.
Perhaps I'll get one here.
Something I am curious about, but couldn’t really tell from the article; how much impact was made on this study by the ever-increasing lack of health insurance.
How many more people would they have info about had those people had insurance.
Another thing is; how many people have been getting hormones via some method other than insurance, either because they don’t have insurance or it isn’t covered, or some such reason.
While this report is encouraging, I don’t think it can be taken by itself as solid proof of a decrease.
Medical News Today says the decrease is smaller, only 7 percent.
This is fantastic, who would have known that Hormone pills increase the risk of breast cancer. I'll check out the rest of the article.
Yay! Less cancer!
On a more concerned note, the radio station that I originally heard about this on (an NPR station), continually made mention of how women who take hormones, especially an estrogen/progesterone combination, had a higher incidence of breast cancer. At no point did they make any mention that it was post- or peri-menopausal women who took these as HRT that had the problems. How much do you want to bet that the religious right will plaster this all over as being evidence that birth control pills cause cancer?
How many pro-life organizations are going to say it's because abortion rates have decreased?
How many pro-life organizations are going to say it's because abortion rates have decreased?
Actually, this announcement just further clouds the issue of using HRT. Every study that has been done about HRT, including this last one, not only looked at synthetic-only HRT, but only one kind of synthetic HRT (the kind already known to be toxic).
We do not know whether other forms of synthetic HRT are as bad, and there are no studies showing whether natural, plant-based HRT is harmful. We suspect it is not, but we do not know. And though the HRT looked at in the studies was shown to not especially protect the heart, there is reason to believe that natural HRT does. And a lot more women die of heart disease than breast cancer.
Add to that the risk of osteoperosis--especially for certain physical types of women--and many, many women are left believing they need HRT. Which they probably do.
that said, if any kind of hormone increased my risk of breast cancer, including those found in the pill, i'd certainly want to know so i could make an informed decision.